Tehran says a U.S. drone strike killed two Iranian advisers in Iraq last week, but the United States says it has only struck Islamic State (IS) militants in its campaign.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on its sepahnews.ir website on March 30 that the strike occurred on March 23, just after the U.S.-led coalition began air strikes to support Iraqi forces trying to retake the IS-held city of Tikrit.

The website identified the dead as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari. It said they were buried on March 29.

The Associated Press news agency quoted the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as saying the “international coalition is aimed at Daesh only,” using another term for the IS extremist group.

Without directly addressing the Iranian claim, the statement said, “All air strikes are carried out through the alliance with the Iraqi government and in full coordination with the [Iraqi] Ministry of Defense.”

The large-scale offensive to retake Tikrit has been waged by Iraqi troops and Shi’ite militias advised by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Guard’s elite Quds Force, in early March.

The U.S.-led coalition began air strikes around Tikrit on March 21 to support the operation at the Iraqi government request.

The top U.S. general for the Middle East said on March 26 that Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias have left the fight and pulled back from Tikrit as a condition for U.S. involvement.

Army General Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he had insisted the militias pull back before the U.S. began flying intelligence-gathering flights and dropping bombs in support of Iraqi soldiers and federal police.

Some militia spokesmen contested that account, saying the forces chose to withdraw to protest U.S. involvement.

Iraq had asked the U.S.-led coalition to mount air strikes on Tikrit after the operation stalled.

Tikrit, the home town of former dictator Saddam Hussain, fell to IS militants in June during an offensive in which they seized much of northern Iraq and Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition began air strikes against the extremist group in August.

Iran has offered advisers and other assistance to Iraq to fight the militants.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad the visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon held meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and other top officials on March 30. Ban also addressed the Iraqi parliament.

Ban’s spokesperson said on Twitter that the UN chief would “convey UN support” for the people and government of Iraq “in these challenging times.”

Still from the SITE video of Steven Sotloff’s beheading by ISIS, allegedly. Click to enlarge

According to government propaganda, we face an enemy in ISIS worse than Hitler, Genghis Khan or Satan himself.

Recently we learned that Boko Haram and the Taliban had pledged allegiance to ISIS. We’re supposed to believe all Islamic terror groups are declaring war under the aegis of a Global Caliphate. We are supposed to imagine ISIS is new and even more evil nemesis of Western Civilization than al-Qaeda.

Abdullah Ganji, the managing-director of an influential Iranian newspaper,says ISIS is a way “to engage Muslims against each other, to waste their energy and in this way Israel’s security would be guaranteed or at least enhanced. Secondly, an ugly, violent and homicidal face of Islam is presented to the world. And third, it creates an inconvenience for Iran.”

You won’t see cartoons like this in America, but this is how the Middle East and Islamic Africa sees ISIS, America, UK and Israel. Click to enlarge

Most Americans believed what they see on TV so this new brand of sand pirate, ISIS, is actually accepted as our new reality.

What could be more ludicrous than our CIA recruiting terrorists from desperately poor Islamic countries, training them in Jordan, furnishing them with BLACK uniforms, ski masks, weapons, new Toyota pickups and black (pirate) ISIS flags (for plenty of phony photo ops) and driving them into Iraq and Syria from NATO’s Turkey, the only place they could have originated?

TV viewers only see what Illuminati specialists prompt them to see on TV, yet what if only 51% of America asked, “Why would ISIS send our mass media grizzly videos of shocking cruelties to be used as propaganda against them???”

And Boko Harem and Taliban would not both merge with ISIS unless they were all under CIA control.

How could even mindless Americans believe that two purportedly distinct terrorists organizations in distant parts of the world blindly throw their allegiance and control to ISIS, an organization that didn’t even exist 12 months ago?

The CIA rebranded Al Queda as a pretext for endless wars. The only way far flung factions could suddenly ‘join’ ISIS is they’re all already controlled from a central authority.

Thus, ISIS is actually more like the Trojan Horse – with US/UK/NATO/Israel inside.

It is Petraeus’s blunt reaction to an Iranian counterpart,Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani,that is particularly buzzworthy, however. Asked about widely distributed photographs of the Iranian military leader in Iraq recently, Petraeus said he has “several thoughts when I see the pictures of him, but most of those thoughts probably aren’t suitable for publication in a family newspaper like yours.”

“What I will say is that he is very capable and resourceful individual, a worthy adversary. He has played his hand well,” Petraeus said. “But this is a long game, so let’s see how events transpire.”

Petraeus added that Iranian influence across the Middle East is rarely helpful to the United States and its allies. The foremost threat to Iraq’s long term security, he said, isn’t the Islamic State, it’s Iranian-backed militias and the volatility they bring.

Petraeus also relayed an old story. In 2008 — the same year that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone was shelled by Iranian-backed militias — Soleimani sent a message to Petraeus, the retired general said. It read: “General Petraeus, you should be aware that I, Qassem Soleimani, control Iran’s policy for Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan.”

Often it is what the Western corporate DOESN’T report that is significant rather than what they do report. For example amid all the Western news reports about Islamic State’s brutality scant attention is being paid to who is actually supporting and supplying the terrorists.

Yet beyond the confines of the Western news media there are numerous reports on the topic. Earlier in March a U.S. helicopter supplying Islamic State fighters was reportedly shot down by Iraqi forces.

The month before two British planes were reportedly shot down in Al-Anbar province, Iraq, as they airdropped supplies to militants there. Although both incidents were reported in the Iranian media they received zero coverage in the Western media.

Like other reports on how Islamic State is led by a Mossad trained double agent, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, they run counter to the official line that the West is opposed to “terror”, when in fact it is promoting it for its own ends. Hence the Western corporate media is dutifully giving reports like the following scant attention. Ed.

Iraqi Commander: Tapped Communications Confirms US Aids to ISIL

Fars News Agency — March 18, 2015

A commander of Iraq’s popular forces disclosed that wiretapping of ISIL’s communications has confirmed the reports that the US planes have been airdropping food and arms supplies for the Takfiri terrorists.

“The wiretapped ISIL communications by Iraqi popular forces have revealed that the US planes have been dropping weapons and foodstuff for the Takfiri terrorist group,” Commander of Iraq’s Ali Akbar Battalion told FNA on Wednesday.

He noted that tapping on ISIL disclosed the terrorist group’s regular contacts with the US army, and said, “They exchanged sentences like if they would have a share of the ammunition dropped near (Spiker Military Base) or responses such as ‘you will also receive your share’.”

“The US forces by dropping weapons and ammunition for ISIL, specially in Yassreb, Al-Ramadi and near Spiker Base in Hay al-Qadessiya have provided a lot of help to the ISIL,” he added.

Many similar reports by Iraqi officials and forces have surfaced in the last few months.

In February, an Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that the US airplanes still continue to airdrop weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists.

“The US planes have dropped weapons for the ISIL terrorists in the areas under ISIL control and even in those areas that have been recently liberated from the ISIL control to encourage the terrorists to return to those places,” Coordinator of Iraqi popular forces Jafar al-Jaberi told FNA.

He noted that eyewitnesses in Al-Havijeh of Kirkuk province had witnessed the US airplanes dropping several suspicious parcels for ISIL terrorists in the province.

“Two coalition planes were also seen above the town of Al-Khas in Diyala and they carried the Takfiri terrorists to the region that has recently been liberated from the ISIL control,” Al-Jaberi said.

Meantime, Head of Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli also disclosed that the anti-ISIL coalition’s planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.

In January, al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.

“There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes),” he told FNA at the time.

He noted that the members of his committee have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it has set up an investigation committee to probe into the matter.

“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations.

He noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the popular forces, and said, “These documents are given to the investigation committee … and the necessary measures will be taken to protect the Iraqi airspace.”

Also in January, another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.

“The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons,” Jome Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said.

He said the coalition’s support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone, and continued, “The coalition has not targeted ISIL’s main positions in Iraq.”

In Late December, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province.

MP Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink reported.

He added that the US and the international coalition are “not serious in fighting against the ISIL organization, because they have the technological power to determine the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month”.

Gharawi added that “the US is trying to expand the time of the war against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces.”

Salahuddin security commission also disclosed that “unknown planes threw arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city”.

Also in Late December, a senior Iraqi lawmaker raised doubts about the seriousness of the anti-ISIL coalition led by the US, and said that the terrorist group still received aids dropped by unidentified aircraft.

“The international coalition is not serious about air strikes on ISIL terrorists and is even seeking to take out the popular (voluntary) forces from the battlefield against the Takfiris so that the problem with ISIL remains unsolved in the near future,” Nahlah al-Hababi told FNA.

“The ISIL terrorists are still receiving aids from unidentified fighter jets in Iraq and Syria,” she added.

Hababi said that the coalition’s precise airstrikes are launched only in those areas where the Kurdish Pishmarga forces are present, while military strikes in other regions are not so much precise.

In late December, the US-led coalition dropped aids to the Takfiri militants in an area North of Baghdad.

Field sources in Iraq told al-Manar that the international coalition airplanes dropped aids to the terrorist militants in Balad, an area which lies in Salahuddin province North of Baghdad.

In October, a high-ranking Iranian commander also slammed the US for providing aid supplies to ISIL, adding that the US claims that the weapons were mistakenly airdropped to ISIL were untrue.

“The US and the so-called anti-ISIL coalition claim that they have launched a campaign against this terrorist and criminal group – while supplying them with weapons, food and medicine in Jalawla region (a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq). This explicitly displays the falsity of the coalition’s and the US’ claims,” Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.

The US claimed that it had airdropped weapons and medical aid to Kurdish fighters confronting the ISIL in Kobani, near the Turkish border in Northern Syria.

The US Defense Department said that it had airdropped 28 bundles of weapons and supplies, but one of them did not make it into the hands of the Kurdish fighters.

Video footage later showed that some of the weapons that the US airdropped were taken by ISIL militants.

The Iranian commander insisted that the US had the necessary intelligence about ISIL’s deployment in the region and that their claims to have mistakenly airdropped weapons to them are as unlikely as they are untrue.Source

]]>http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=1127210Iran Sent Arms to Iraq to Fight ISIS, U.S. Sayshttp://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=112693
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=112693#commentsThu, 19 Mar 2015 07:47:48 +0000http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=112693Eric Schmitt — New York Times March 16, 2015

Iran has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq.

United States intelligence agencies detected the deployments in the past few weeks as Iraq was marshaling a force of 30,000 troops — two-thirds of them Shiite militias largely trained and equipped by Iran, according to three American officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence reports on Iran.

Fateh missile launched from an undisclosed location in Iran. Click to enlarge

Iran has not yet launched any of the weapons, but American officials fear the rockets and missiles could further inflame sectarian tensions and cause civilian casualties because they are not precision guided. Their deployment is another dilemma for the Obama administration as it trains and equips the Iraqi military and security services to help defeat the Islamic State, but unlike Iran is unwilling to commit fighters and advisers who join Iraqi forces in the field.

One senior American military official who tracks classified intelligence reports said Iran had deployed Fajr-5 artillery rockets and Fateh-110 missiles and their launchers. Another senior American military official who also monitors sensitive government reports on Iran said the deployed weapons were similar to the Fajr-5 rockets and Fateh-110 missiles but were slightly different and had different names. The official offered no other details. The C.I.A. declined to comment.

Either way, American officials agreed that the Iranian missiles introduced a new level of advanced weaponry to the battlefield in Iraq, even as some experts questioned their usefulness at this stage in the battle for Tikrit. But the Fajr-5 rockets are the same weapons that Hamas has fired against Israel in recent conflicts. Hezbollah and the Syrian Army have also been using Iranian rockets and missiles for some time, military specialists said.

The second senior American military official said the Iranian missiles are “not a big deal at this point,” but then quickly added, “My concern, as with artillery and other non-precise weapons, is collateral damage if they employ them.”

There has been growing international pressure to avoid civilian casualties and revenge attacks on people or property in an operation by a mostly Shiite force in a hub of the so-called Sunni triangle. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 3, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, alluded to the deployment of the rockets and missiles when he said, “This is the most overt conduct of Iranian support, in the form of artillery and other things.”

General Dempsey also said that while the involvement of Iranian-backed Shiites in Tikrit could be “a positive thing,” he voiced concerns that “it will only be a problem if it results in sectarianism.”

That sentiment underscored the reality that even though American officials have deep reservations about Iran’s enduring role in Iraq, Iraqis need Iranian help in defeating the Islamic State.

“Are you concerned that Iran has basically taken over the fight?” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, asked Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter at the same March 3 hearing.

“Sectarianism is what brought us to the point where we are,” Mr. Carter replied. “And so I do look at it with concern. We’re watching it very closely.”

American officials say they believe Iran imported the rockets and missiles for the Tikrit operation because other artillery was not able to reach targets around the city in what has become a difficult, protracted battle. Even after weeks of fighting, Islamic State militants remained dug in on Monday in Tikrit and still controlled parts of the city against the much larger pro-government force.

And in a sign of how much this battle reflected the entire campaign against ISIS, Iraqi officials said they were pausing their offensive to summon reinforcements and to preserve property and civilian lives.

The Fajr-5 rocket and Fateh-110 missile launching systems are typically carried on a specially designed truck and are formidable additions to the Iraqi arsenal. Fajr-5 rockets, which are named after the Persian word for dawn, have a range of about 45 miles. Each is 20 feet long and weighs more than 2,000 pounds. The Fajr-5 warhead alone weighs 375 pounds.

It is unclear how many rockets and missiles the Iranians brought with launchers or how they would resupply their stockpile should the trained Iranian crews employ them, said one senior American military official.

The Fateh-110 missile is even more capable than the Fajr-5, military specialists said on Monday, but they questioned the need for them in Tikrit now that the battle has moved to close-quarters, urban combat, when unguided rockets and missiles are not as useful. “Generally speaking, these weapons are more effective at terrorizing civilians than providing fire support for ground operations,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “That is how Hezbollah has used them. I don’t expect that either system will produce dramatically different results on the battlefield.”

Military specialists speculated that Iranians might have brought the weapons into Iraq with the idea that they would use them if they could not effectively advance on Tikrit, and now may be keeping them there with the expectation of using them in a future battle, perhaps for the city of Mosul.

Over all, the military specialists said it was not particularly surprising to see the Iranians deploying the advanced rockets and missiles to the fight in Iraq.

These officials said that the deployment builds on a pattern of assistance that Iran and its proxies have provided Iraq since 2004, and most recently accelerated in an effort to blunt the Islamic State’s momentum. Even as American warplanes provided cover, Iranian-trained Shiite militias last August broke a weeklong ISIS siege of Amerli, a group of farming villages whose Shiite residents faced possible annihilation.

Last summer, when Islamic State militants first captured Mosul and got within striking distance of Erbil, the Kurdish capital, the head of Iran’s Quds Force and its chief spymaster, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, flew to Erbil with two planes full of military supplies, American and regional diplomats said. The Iranian move helped to bolster Kurdish defenses around Erbil.

In the Tikrit operation, General Suleimani was close at hand to help oversee the offensive led by Iranian-backed Shiite militia leaders that make up more than two-thirds of the pro-government force.

His leadership did not go unnoticed in Washington. “We are watching,” General Dempsey said.

The U.S. has failed to live up to its promises to help Iraq fight Islamic State extremists, unlike the “unconditional” assistance being given by Iran, the commander of Iraq’s powerful Shiite militias alleged Friday.

In a battlefield interview near Tikrit, where Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the militants of the so-called Islamic State, commander Hadi al-Amiri criticized those who “kiss the hands of the Americans and get nothing in return.”

Iraqi forces entered Tikrit for the first time Wednesday from the north and south. On Friday, they waged fierce battles to secure the northern neighborhood of Qadisiyya and lobbed mortar shells and rockets into the city center, still in the hands of IS militants. Iraqi military officials have said they expect to reach central Tikrit in two to three days.

Reuters reports Saturday that Iraqi forces and mainly Shiite militiamen have paused their offensive for a second day on Saturday as they awaited reinforcements, a military source said.

Islamic State fighters still hold about half the city and have booby-trapped buildings and laid improvised explosive devices and roadside bombs, the source in the local military command center told Reuters.

More “well-trained forces” were needed for the street-by-street battles that recapturing the whole city would require, the source said, speaking by phone from Tikrit, He did not give a timeline for their arrival.

The Iranian-backed Shiite militias have played a crucial role in regaining territory from the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group, supporting Iraq’s embattled military and police forces.

An Iraqi government official told The Associated Press that Iran has sold Baghdad nearly $10 billion in arms and hardware, mostly weapons for urban warfare like assault rifles, heavy machine-guns and rocket launchers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

In November, President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 more U.S. troops to bolster Iraqi forces, which could more than double the total of American forces in Iraq to 3,100. The Pentagon has made a spending request to Congress of $1.6 billion, focusing on training and arming Kurdish and Iraqi forces. According to a Pentagon document prepared in November, the U.S. is looking to provide an estimated $89.3 million in weapons and equipment to each of the nine Iraqi brigades.

The U.S.-led coalition of eight countries has launched more than 2,000 airstrikes in Iraq alone since August 2014, and the U.S. is also hitting the militant group from the air in Syria. Iraqi and U.S. officials have acknowledged the role airstrikes have played in rolling back the militants, saying the air campaign was an essential component in victories at the Mosul Dam, in Amirli, and more recently, in the crucial oil refining town of Beiji.

But the U.S. is not taking part in the operation in Tikrit, with U.S. officials saying they were not asked by Iraq to participate.

Al-Amiri, the Shiite militia commander who also is head of the Badr Organization political party, said that “help from Iran is unconditional.”

He warned that Iraq should not sacrifice its sovereignty for the sake of receiving weapons and assistance from the U.S., suggesting the Iraqi government is taking instructions from Washington.

“Our sovereignty is more important than U.S. weapons,” he said. “We can bring weapons from any country in the world.”

Separately, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, urged the government to step up its support for the Shiite militias and to take care of the families of militiamen killed in battle. His remarks were relayed by his spokesman Ahmed al-Safi in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

As many as 30,000 men are fighting the extremists in Tikrit — most of them volunteers with various Shiite militias, Iraqi officials say. U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey said Wednesday that up to 20,000 militiamen may be involved.

Karim al-Nouri, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Forces, the official name of the Shiite militias, said as many as 40 Iranian advisers are also taking part.

In its march across Syria and northern and western Iraq, the Islamic State group — also known as ISIS or ISIL — has seized cities, towns and vast tracts of land. Its predominantly Sunni fighters view Shiites as apostates and have carried out a number of massacres.

“We ask that actions follow words to punish those who are attacking houses in Tikrit,” Abdul Jabbar said during his Friday sermon in Baghdad. “We are sorry about those acting in revenge that might ignite tribal anger and add to our sectarian problems.”

Abdul Jabbar said that if the government failed to stop revenge attacks by Shiite militias, Iraq would face reignited sectarian tensions, similar to those it witnessed at the height of Iraq’s sectarian wars in 2006 and 2007.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi last week called on his forces to protect civilians and their property in recaptured areas, vowing zero tolerance for any violations. He also urged Sunnis who may have welcomed the initial onslaught or fought beside the militants to give up their support for IS.

“I call upon those who have been misled or committed a mistake to lay down arms and join their people and security forces in order to liberate their cities,” al-Abadi said.

Iraqi and Shia militia forces have been taking back ground from Islamic State, pushing the jihadist fighters out of much of the town of Tikrit.

But in a sign of Tehran’s growing military presence in the Iraq, Iranian weapons were a nearly ubiquitous sight in images and videos coming out of the offensive to take the mostly Sunni city.

Ever since Islamic State shocked the region with its capture of Mosul last summer, Iran has opened up its arsenals and flooded clients, proxies and friends in Iraq with arms and vehicles.

Now, as Iraqi forceshave brushed off their American advisers during the push into Tikrit, Iranian weapons — and advisers — are helping to spread the Islamic Republic’s influence.

Iranian officials are hesitant to acknowledge an obvious military presence in Iraq, but its weapons supplies aren’t exactly discrete. The shipments include conspicuous heavy weapons peculiar to Iran or with obvious Iranian markings.

Despite the official denials, Iran clearly isn’t concerned about evidence of its involvement in the conflict being so easy to spot.

In August 2014, social media lit up with pictures purporting to show Iranian M-60 tanks crossing into Iraq from the border town of Khaneghein. Then in March, the open-source military blogger Oryxcaught sight of an Iranian T-72S tank parading near the fighting in Tikrit.

Iran reportedlyhas up to 380of the Shilden export variant of the T-72B tanks, which have explosive reactive armor.

Other heavy weapons making an appearance in Tikrit include an Iranian version of the BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system, the Hadid. The Hadid, which fires 40 unguided rockets, is a product of Shahid Bagheri Industries, part of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization.

Whether through inattention or apathy — or perhaps quite deliberately — Tehran sent the Hadid to Tikrit with Iran’s crescents-and-sword national emblem still affixed to the rear.

But Safir trucks are by far the most visible indicator of Iran’s support. The tactical vehicles have been making an appearance in Iraq since the beginning of Iran’s push to oust Islamic State.

While Islamic State has to rely on commercial vehicles like Toyota pickup trucks to quickly move around, Iranian proxies in Iraq enjoy access to the purpose-built Safir.

The Safir is a 4 x 4 modeled after the iconic American M-38 and M-151 jeeps, which Iran claims to have put the into mass production by the thousands in 2007. Those numbers are hard to confirm, but judging by Shia militia propaganda, they’re certainly plentiful.

In the days before Iraqi forces finally cleared Tikrit of Islamic State fighters, social media imagery showed columns of Safirs clogging the roads on the way to the city.

The Safir can carry a handful of weapons systems. The most common is the 107-millimeter Fajr-1 rocket system, courtesy ofIran’s Defense Industries Organization.

The Fajr-1 is more or less a vehicle-mounted version of the popular Chinese Type 63 rocket, which have been around since the 1960s.

The 12 unguided rockets aren’t very accurate, but the militias used them in great numbers of pound Islamic State positions around the city.

U.S.-trained and armed Iraqi military units, the key to the American strategy against ISIS, are under investigation for committing some of the same atrocities as the terror group, American and Iraqi officials told ABC News. Some Iraqi units have already been cut off from U.S. assistance over “credible” human rights violations, according to a senior military official on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

The investigation, being conducted by the Iraqi government, was launched after officials were confronted with numerous allegations of “war crimes,” based in part on dozens of ghastly videos and still photos that appear to show uniformed soldiers from some of Iraq’s most elite units and militia members massacring civilians, torturing and executing prisoners, and displaying severed heads.

The videos and photos are part of a trove of disturbing images that ABC News discovered has been circulating within the dark corners of Iraqi social media since last summer. In some U.S. military and Iraqi circles, the Iraqi units and militias under scrutiny are referred to as the “dirty brigades.”

“As the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] and militias reclaim territory, their behavior must be above reproach or they risk being painted with the same brush as ISIL [ISIS] fighters,” said a statement to ABC News from the U.S. government. “If these allegations are confirmed, those found responsible must be held accountable.

In an image posted on Instagram, six black-uniformed men who appear to be Iraqi Special Operations Forces from the “Golden Brigades” surround an alleged ISIS suspect who has been dragged with a rope or cable tied to his foot.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, along with international human rights advocates and military experts, called the photos evidence of Iraqi “war crimes.”

“I guarantee you ultimately we get blamed for it whether we did it or not,” Leahy predicted.

Under what is known as the Leahy Law, the U.S. is required to cut off funds to any foreign military unit when there is “credible evidence” of human rights violations. In Iraq the responsibility of determination falls to the Department of Defense. In recent Senate testimony, Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed the Iraqi investigation had been ordered and said the Leahy Law applies to units operating alongside the many militias also fighting in Iraq against ISIS.

“I would say that involves the Leahy Law,” Leahy recently told ABC News after viewing the shocking imagery. “And I’d argue that we should be withholding money.”

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. already has. In a statement to ABC News, the Joint Staff official revealed that in the months since the U.S. began airstrikes and military assistance to Iraq last August, “We have withheld assistance from certain Iraqi units on the basis of credible information in the past. Due to the sensitive nature of our security assistance, we are unable to discuss specific units.”

In Washington today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey told lawmakers the U.S. military is keeping a close eye on the militias as well.

“What we are watching carefully is whether the militias — they call themselves the popular mobilization forces — whether when they recapture lost territory, whether they engage in acts of retribution and ethnic cleansing,” he said.

An Iraqi government spokesperson previously said while the dozens of photos could be ISIS propaganda, a full investigation was warranted.

“Yes, of course we will investigate these pictures,” the spokesperson, Gen. Saad Maan, said in an interview in Baghdad as he viewed a selection of images provided by ABC News.

“We don’t have anything to hide,” the general said. “We don’t have anything to be in, let’s say, in a black corner.”

A bound and blindfolded detainee appears to be dropped – or possibly hung from the neck according to one analyst — from what looks like an Iraqi military base guard tower. The image was posted on Instagram.

The Iraqi military is key to the U.S. strategy to fight ISIS and stop its atrocities, which have outraged the world. The U.S. is shipping almost $1 billion in weapons, as well as providing U.S. military trainers to instruct new Iraqi recruits. A special operations official in Baghdad, however, said it’s the government of Iraq that decides — not the Pentagon — which Iraqi units get U.S.-donated weapons, such as 43,000 M4 rifles and thousands of other light infantry weapons Congress approved for shipment in December. American troops are not known to be operating on the ground in combat in Iraq or Syria. No Americans are shown in the images or footage ABC News has found, nor have any Americans been implicated in any of the alleged atrocities.

Officials from Human Rights Watchand Amnesty International who reviewed the library of horrors assembled in the ABC News investigation said it is rare to see so much visual evidence of human rights abuses.

“Usually when forces commit such crimes they try to hide them. What we are seeing here is a brazen, proud display of these terrible crimes,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Executive Director at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview as she and the group’s lead investigator in Iraq, Erin Evers, surveyed the carnage.

ABC News came upon the first such images last September, when a reporter following personal Instagram accounts of Iraqi counter-terrorism troops spotted a video of a handcuffed prisoner shot in the head by a man in camouflage — which more than 600 users “liked.” The English and Arabic captions by a self-identified member of the Iraqi security forces said, “We have arrested this terrorist yesterday and we killed him after completion of interrogation.”

A separate photo posted in September showed the severed head of a long-haired and bearded alleged ISIS fighter lashed to the grill of a U.S.-donated Humvee bearing an Iraqi Army license plate. A second related photo eventually surfaced of what appeared to be an Iraqi Army soldier holding up the same severed head next to the gun truck. Desecration of war dead and extrajudicial killings are violations of the Geneva Conventions.

“You don’t behead someone and place their head on the front of your Humvee. That’s unacceptable — because it’s a war crime. And it’s an atrocity,” retired U.S. Army Special Forces Lt. Col. James Gavrilis told ABC News.

As a senior officer in 5th Special Forces Group in Iraq a decade ago, Gavrilis was deeply involved in counterinsurgency during the U.S. war and creating Iraqi counter-terrorism units from Special Forces and special police teams.

“I think it’s horrible. I think this really shows a failure of our policy for Iraq,” Gavrilis said, confirming that the imagery looked authentic and too plentiful online to be faked.

“Both sides are committing war crimes,” he said. “This is widespread, it’s endemic.”

In another video posted online in October, two unarmed civilians are shot to death after being questioned, and denying, whether they were part of ISIS. When the camera pans to one man with a gun, he appears to be wearing a uniform and shoulder patch of Iraqi Special Forces, with Iraqi Army officers also nearby observing the atrocity.

Fighters who appear to be a mix of militia and army appearing in a separate 78-second video circulating in January — including some wearing Iraqi flags and Iraqi Special Forces patches — take pictures of a captured teenaged boy who appears terrified. “Didn’t you just shoot?” demands one fighter. The handcuffed boy, shoved to the ground, insists, “No, no, I did not shoot a single bullet.”

The men argue over whether to kill him, some asking the others to calm down, but they shoot him to death anyway as the sound of mortars and gunfire nearby punctuate the crime. “This is to avenge the martyrs,” one man says.

“I’ve seen all sorts of horrible things over the years… but I have never seen anything this bad in my life,” said Ali Khedery, an American former diplomat in Baghdad who advised five U.S. ambassadors in the Iraqi capital and three generals overseeing Middle East operations at U.S. Central Command.

Khedery recentlywrote in Foreign Policyabout another video, where a man was beaten and machine gunned to death by a gang who appeared to be both militias and Iraqi Special Forces with U.S.-donated M4A1 rifles. He said the video slaughter of the Iraqis accused by their killers of smuggling weapons for ISIS was far worse, because Iraqi government troops were present.

“It was the shooting of unarmed men. This is a U.S.-backed government. They carried U.S. weapons,” he said.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities say they have been working to fully authenticate the content posted online on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter connected to the Iraqi military. The uniforms and insignia of Iraqi Special Operations Forces under the command of Baghdad’s Counter-Terrorism Forces as well as special police and Emergency Response units from the Ministry of the Interior are clearly identifiable in many of the photos and videos, which include many severed heads and corpses dragged behind humvees.

Gen. Maan, the Iraqi government spokesperson, claimed the patches identifying Iraqi military units could be bought on Iraqi streets and that the gruesome images could be a clever ploy by ISIS to discredit the Iraqi military.

The severed head of an alleged ISIS fighter is being held up by a desert camouflage-uniformed individual in front of a Humvee in this image uploaded to Instagram. Patches on his uniform match those often worn by the Iraqi Army.

“It does not look like ISIS propaganda at all,” Gavrilis said. “I don’t know how we could support them, if they are spearheading a lot on the front lines alongside these militias, and if they are conducting these kinds of atrocities as well… These Shi’a militias are just as barbaric as ISIS.”

Some militias take pride in their atrocities and appear to often be calling the shots on the battlefield, not the government forces, BloombergView columnist Eli Lake found when herecently visitedthe front lines north of Baghdad.

Officials said that the State Department’s human rights observers and military intelligence had viewed examples of Iraqi Security Forces posting atrocities on personal social media for over a year. But one knowledgeable U.S. official said that since ABC News began asking about the many disturbing images last fall, the atrocities allegations against Iraq’s fighting forces have grown “more severe” and the “very concerning” allegations are being raised at high levels in Baghdad.

The Pentagon spokesperson told ABC News the U.S. military has “discussed with Iraqi leaders the paramount importance of maintaining high standards of conduct and protecting civilian populations of all sects.”

“The actions of a small minority, if left unchecked, could do serious harm to the efforts of the Iraqi government,” the spokesperson said.

With several thousand American troops back in Iraq as trainers, the alleged atrocities by Iraqi troops puts U.S. military commanders in the unenviable position of having to sort out which units are clean or dirty, Gavrilis said.

In the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress it’s worth seeing what he said in context.

More than 12 years ago Netanyahu was making similar warnings about Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s drive for Weapons of Mass Destruction. We know how that ended: Iraq was invaded, Saddam overthrown but no WMDs were found.

In his latest speech Netanyahu dismissed sanctions, inspections and negotiation as a means of neutralising the threat he claims Iran poses. This effectively leaves a military strike as the only option.

“This is a bad deal, a very bad deal. We’re better off without it,” Netanyahu said.

Essentially he wants the West to launch military strikes on Iran, just as it once did with Iraq.

Has the West learned its lesson? Are our leaders about to repeat the same mistake, and this time risk World War III with Russian intervention, while Netanyahu watches from the sidelines?

The Iraqi popular forces who shot down a US helicopter carrying weapons for the ISIL forces in Al-Baqdadi region released the photos of the shot down chopper through the Internet.

A group of Iraqi popular forces known as Al-Hashad Al-Shabi shot down the US Army helicopter that was carrying weapons for the ISIL in the western parts of Al-Baqdadi region in Al-Anbar province on Thursday

Last week, Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli announced that the helicopters of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition were dropping weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists in the Southern parts of Tikrit.

He underscored that he had documents and photos showing that the US Apache helicopters airdropped foodstuff and weapons for the ISIL.

On Friday the Iraqi security forces regained control of al-Baghdadi district from the ISIL terrorists.

“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard.

Michael Nikolai Skråmo aka Abo Ibrahim Al Swedi probably didn’t need a job. He was trained as a chef before he converted to Islam.

The 29-year-old Swede, who today calls himself “Abdul Samad al Swedi”, grew up in Gothenburg. He converted to Islam during a field trip to Egypt about ten years ago and has since been engaged in a series of tax-funded Muslim organizations.

In 2009 he was invited to SVT, where he told Swedish viewers how Muslim phobia (Islamophobia) and hatred was spread around Europe.

Previously, the Swede have been heavily involved to counter what he described as a misleading picture of Muslims as violent fanatics. In an episode of SVT debate, which can be seen on Youtube, he attacked the malicious picture of Muslims spread in Europe.

As a lecturer Abdul Samad has mainly been active in the radical Bellevue Mosque in Gothenburg. There he held a series of sermons on the association Multicultural Youth Center (MKUC), notorious for four youth leaders of the Association, including president of the association , once armed with knives attempted to attack Lars Vilks in an art event at Red Rock in Gothenburg. It is worth noting that sermons should have been co-arranged with the wide Muslim educational association Ibn Rushd. Abdul Samad has also been linked to the Swedish Federation of Muslims , also a compound of radical preachers, located at the Bellevue Mosque.

Michael Skråmo, 29, took the whole family – his little four children and wife – to the IS-controlled area inside Syria. Now Skråmo filmed a propaganda video outside the Syrian city Kobane where he preaches jihad and calls Swedish jihadists to leave Sweden and join the “holy war”.

“My brothers, ‘hijra’ (migration) and ‘jihad’ are so simple. It only costs a few thousand ‘lapp’ [Swedish kronor],” he says in Swedish. “Do you not wish in in your heart to fight and show God what you have to offer him? The door to jihad is standing there waiting for you. It’s the fastest way to Jannah [Paradise].”

According to Sweden’s Expressen newspaper, he converted to Islam in 2005, after which he travelled widely in the Islamic world, learning Arabic and studying the religion.

At the end of the video, Skråmo becomes more emotional.

“I want you to be here with me. I want us to hang out in Jannah. My wonderful brothers, take this decision, trust in Allah, sacrificing your money and your life for Allah, and you will receive the highest from Allah “.

And if the whole ISIS thing doesn’t work out, he can always go back to Sweden and lecture the natives on how they’re Islamophobes for associating Islam with terrorism.

Head of Iraq’s National Security and Defence committee, Hakem al-Zameli said the planes had been shot down over Al-Anbar province as they flew supplies to the militants.

According to the legislator, the government in Baghdad has been receiving daily reports from al-Anbar province on flights by US-led coalition planes airdropping supplies to ISIL terrorists.

Hakem al-Zameli said the Iraqi Defence committee had access to photos of the downed planes, which he said were “British”. Although the Fars News report didn’t specify whether the planes were simply British made planes or registered as British owned planes.

Al-Zameli said that Islamic militants depended entirely on support from United States and its allies.

“There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes),” he told FNA in January.

“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations”.

There have long been reports that the U.S., Israel and their allies in the West and the gulf emirates have trained and supplied the Sunni militants. The objective being to oust Syria’s President Assad and create a force with which to counter Iranian backed Hezbollah.

On the pretext of “fighting Islamic State militants”, the U.S. and its allies now appear to be preparing to ramp-up their campaign to oust President Assad.

Although given the support the U.S. seems to have given the militants, those air strikes could just as easily be directed at Syrian government forces.

Meanwhile the Head of Iraq’s Al-Anbar Provincial Council, Khalaf Tarmouz was quoted as saying Monday that Islamic State fighters had been found with sophisticated Western made weapons.

“We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region.”

Tarmouz noted that the weapons were also recovered from ISIL terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi.

The U.S. has previously claimed that U.S. weapons in the hands of Islamic militants were originally destined for Kurdish forces fighting them. The weapons and supplies had only fallen into the wrong hands after they had been mistakenly airdropped into areas controlled Islamic State militants.

A mistake, or so the U.S. government and Islamic State militants would have us believe.

However, in the light of repeated reports of Islamic State militants receiving Western military aid it looks increasingly like they are being deliberately, although covertly supplied by the West.

A senior Iraqi legislator revealed that Israel’s Golani Infantry Brigade has trained the commanders of the ISIL terrorist group in the Sinai for sabotage operations in Egypt.

The Islamic State deployed several brigades in the Sinai, whose commanders were trained by Israeli Golani Brigade and are now operating against Egypt said Wahhab al-Tayee, rapporteur of al-Sadeqoun parliamentary faction in Iraq.

He told FNA that ISIL is nearing complete destruction in Iraq and Syria, and “it has been transferred to Egypt under the name of Daames (the Islamic State in Egypt and Sudan).”

He further added that the serial killing of Egyptian militaries in the Sinai region proves the authenticity of this claim.

In similar remarks Iranian Supreme Leader’s senior adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, emphasized that the ISIL was created by the West and Israel to follow their interests in the region.

“ISIL has actually been created by the western colonial powers and the Zionists because whatever this terrorist group does runs counter to Islam and the rules of all Islamic sects,” Velayati said.

He said the Israeli government could use the destruction of Muslim holy sites by ISIL as a justification for the demolition of the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Back in December, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the Islamic State was serving the US and Israel’s interests.

He underlined an example for showing that the ISIL was serving the US, Britain and the Zionist regime as it was seen that its jihadists didn’t even show a slight opposition to the Zionist rule and even collaborated with the Zionists in fighting the Muslims.

He stressed that the so-called US-led anti-ISIL coalition was nothing but a lie, and said the US airdrops of military equipment and weapons for the ISIL shows the real picture.

He also stressed that the Muslim Ulema are responsible in the current situation, and said that they should create a scientific, logical and prevalent campaign to uproot the Islamic State.Source

A billboard depicting the late Iranian Ayatollah in central Baghdad. Click to enlarge

Perhaps nothing illuminates more starkly the transformation underway in Iraq than the billboard depicting the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini erected recently on the edge of Baghdad’s Firdaus Square. The portrait obscures the view of the plinth where a giant statue of Saddam Hussein once stood, until U.S. Marines pulled it down in 2003.

The 2003 event was a profoundly symbolic moment that seemed to capture the swift triumph of American troops over Hussein’s crumbling army. It also signaled the start of Iraq’s steady drift into the orbit of Iranian influence, a trend that has accelerated dramatically since the surge into northern Iraq by the Islamic State last summer.

The billboard is one of many put up around the streets of Baghdad advertising the multiple Shiite militias that have emerged to battle the Islamic State, many of them with support from Iran. This one advertises the Resurrection of Hussein Brigade, a newly formed group that Iraqis say was directly created by Iran. It also features the portrait of Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor.

In the background is the Palestine Hotel, where many of the journalists who covered the U.S. invasion stayed, and where U.S. Marines set up one of their first offices.

Much of the Sunni-Shiite rivalry tearing Iraq apart today is rooted in the animosity between Saddam Hussein and Khomeini, the architect of the Iranian revolution. Under Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime, Iraq waged an eight-year war against Shiite Iran in the 1980s, in which more than a million Iranians and Iraqis died. Iraq was backed in its endeavor by the Sunni states of the Persian Gulf as well as the United States, which saw Hussein’s Iraq as a bulwark against the expansionist ambitions of Khomeini’s new Shiite republic.

Thirty-five years after Iraq launched the war, both men are dead. (Khomeini died in 1989, and Hussein was executed in 2006.) But it is the image of Khomeini that endures, in the heart of the capital of Iraq.

I think that there are two prominent phenomena which will soon make people aware of the fundamental importance and extent of the Jewish question in the present world.

The first phenomenon is the existence of Israel, a prime signal of Jewish ethnocentrism’s inevitable double standard when compared to the ethnically and culturally pluralist attitudes of Diaspora Jews in the West.

The second phenomenon is the exposure of how easy it is for Jews to ally themselves with (or taking the side of) Muslims, if it suits their interest either in their war against the White gentiles — their perceived main Western enemies — or in other ways.

I’m referring to the recent UN documentsrevealing Israel’s support for ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria.

The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, has long complained of a conspiracy of Zionists and Syrian rebels to overthrow the country’s President Bashar Assad. Mr. Ja’afari has declared that the extremists have an “undeclared alliance with Israel and are engaged in a secret agreement” with its regime.

Now, a United Nations report seems to vindicate his claims. It reveals that Israel has been doing more than simply treating wounded Syrian civilians in hospitals, and details direct regular contacts between Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers and armed Syrian opposition fighters, working closely together in the Golan Heights since the spring of 2013.

Thanks to the American intervention which got rid of Saddam Hussein — and ultimately to the US Jewish neoconservative movement and Israel lobby that instigated it ideologically and politically, Iraq, once the strongest supporter of Palestinians (yes, contrary to popular Zionist assertions, they do exist), is weak and divided.

So it’s time to turn to another stable player in the region and potential enemy of Israel: Syria. The protracted civil war on the Syrian government is depleting the country’s army and devastating its infrastructure; rebuilding them will preoccupy Syria for a long time and defuse any military threat from it to Israel. Covertly, Israel is a crucial key player in prolonging this war and is the major beneficiary of maintaining what the Israeli pundit Amos Harel called the “stable instability” in Syria and the region.

But several recent developments have exposed Israel’s no longer discreet role, among which is the UN documentation.

The new report was the work of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) — UN observers in the Golan Heights — and was submitted to the 15 members of the UN Security Council at the beginning of December 2014.

The UNDOF 1,200-strong observer forces — contributed by six countries — have been monitoring since 1974 a buffer zone between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights, stretching about 70 kilometers from Lebanon in the north to Jordan in the south.

Reports by the UNDOF are regularly submitted to the UN Security Council, and since March 2013 have started to show that Israel admits wounded Syrians into the country for medical treatment in hospitals.

Initially the IDF claimed that this was only for medical assistance for civilians, but then UN observers witnessed direct contact between IDF forces and ISIS fighters.

The UN reports said that 89 rebels were transported into the Israeli-occupied zone between March and May 2014, while activists in southern Deraa province and in Quneitra quoted in media reports claim that communications increased between rebels and the Israeli military before the eruption of heavy clashes in the area.

Israel’s health ministry says about 1,000 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals.

In answer to a question by i24News on whether Israel hospitalises members of al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaeda terror group in Syria) and Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, or ISIS), an Israeli military spokesman’s office admitted: “In the past two years the Israel Defense Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity.”

Syria maintains that it has “information indicating that there were undercover agents among the wounded Syrians recently treated by Israel”:

She further claimed that Israeli officers are operating in Syria and monitoring the fighting in the war-torn country…

Assad himself told an Argentinean newspaper a few months ago that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime.

“Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he claimed. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them.”

UN observations have been cut short, in part due to attacks on UN monitors by the very terrorists Israel is suspected of associating with — attacks that managed to prevent any further documentation.

Israel’s ties to militants have long been documented. In November 2014 members of Israel’s Druze minority published a statement accusing the Israeli government of supporting all factions fighting against the Syrian government, including al-Nusra — the militant group loyal to al-Qaeda — and the Islamic State, not only by offering them medical care but also by supplying them with weapons. The Druze group had issued similar warnings in the past.

Whenever Israel strikes at Syria, it strikes at the only viable nation fighting ISIS in the region.

The main — if not only — force providing a defence for regional minorities, including Christians, Jews, Druzes and Muslims of all sects, is the Syrian Arab Army. Attacking it undermines its ability to curb what can otherwise become uncontrolled genocide carried out by extremists.

The UN and other reports have described transfer of crates of unspecified supplies from the IDF to militant rebels, sightings of IDF soldiers meeting with Syrian insurgents, and cases of Israeli soldiers opening up the fence to allow Syrians through who didn’t appear to be injured.

Witnesses on a late December’sRT TV documentary said they had seen Israeli forces in talks with armed, militant anti-Assad fighters.

Ehud Yaari, an Israeli fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [WINEP] and an expert on the Golan Heights, said that Israel is supplying Syrian villages with medicines, heaters, and other humanitarian supplies. The assistance, he said, has benefited civilians and insurgents.

Given that Yaari is Israeli and given that WINEP is a pillar of the Israel Lobby, Israeli assistance may in fact go well beyond humanitarian aid.

This is part of a continuing process. In early December 2014 Syrian officials demanded the UN impose sanctions on Israel after Tel Aviv conducted airstrikes in the areas of Dimas, known to contain military bases and research centres, and Damascus International Airport, damaging some facilities. This was the seventh major unprovoked air strike by Israel on Syrian defences since 2011 and the fifth in the previous 18 months.

The Syrians said the attack was a heinous crime against their sovereignty by a country that doesn’t hide its policy of supporting terrorism.

Israel claimed that it was a “defensive measure,” as Syria was “hiding sophisticated weaponry destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

It is odd, however, that Israel attacks what it labels “regional threats” in Damascus while providing sanctuaries for terrorist groups like al-Nusra and ISIS by allowing them to maintain tanks and artillery along its borders.

That Israel’s aid to terrorist insurgents in Syria is not limited to medical assistance was also evident from what The Times of Israelreported in August 2014:

A Free Syrian Army commander, arrested last month by the Islamist militia Al-Nusra Front, told his captors he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week …

“The [opposition] factions would receive support and send the injured in [to Israel] on condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israel authorities,” Safouri said in the video. …

Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with “basic medical support and clothes” as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian [rifles], 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.

The Syrian opposition is willing to give up claims to the Golan Heights in return for cash and Israeli military aid against President Bashar Assad, a top opposition official told Al Arab newspaper, according to a report in Al Alam…

The Western-backed militant groups want Israel to enforce a no-fly zone over parts of southern Syria to protect rebel bases from air strikes by Assad’s forces, according to the report.

On 20 January 2015, Foreign Affairsinterviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who accused the IDF of conspiring with al-Qaeda. Asked what he thought Israel’s agenda is, he replied:

“They are supporting the rebels in Syria. It’s very clear. Because whenever we make advances in some place, they make an attack in order to undermine the army. It’s very clear. That’s why some in Syria joke: “How can you say that al Qaeda doesn’t have an air force? They have the Israeli air force [a reference to its attacks on regime and Hezbollah positions in Syria].”…

“The question that we have is, how much will does the United States have to really fight terrorism on the ground? So far, we haven’t seen anything concrete in spite of the attacks on ISIS in northern Syria. There’s nothing concrete. What we’ve seen so far is just, let’s say, window-dressing, nothing real. Since the beginning of these attacks, ISIS has gained more land in Syria and Iraq.”…

So are you saying you want greater U.S. involvement in the war against ISIS?

“It’s not about greater involvement by the military, because it’s not only about the military; it’s about politics. It’s about how much the United States wants to influence the Turks. Because if the terrorists can withstand the air strikes for this period, it means that the Turks keep sending them armaments and money. Did the United States put any pressure on Turkey to stop the support of al Qaeda? They didn’t; they haven’t.”…

So are you suggesting there should be U.S. troops on the ground?

“Not U.S. troops. I’m talking about the principle, the military principle. I’m not saying American troops. If you want to say I want to make war on terrorism, you have to have troops on the ground. The question you have to ask the Americans is, which troops are you going to depend on? Definitely, it has to be Syrian troops. This is our land; this is our country. We are responsible. We don’t ask for American troops at all.”…

The US has backed the Syrian insurgents since early in the civil war, and is planning to train over 5,000 “vetted” rebels. During the same interview Assad argued that such US plans are “illusory” as these rebels would eventually defect to the jihadists: “They are going to be fought like any other illegal militia fighting against the Syrian army.”

There are no “moderate rebels” in Syria. Even the groups and leaders considered moderate by the West openly admit that they are working closely with the extremists and the most radical, who always end up having control over the anti-Assad opposition. Terrorist al-Nusra and the “moderate” Free Syrian Army have collaborated in the battlefield against the Assad regime. In short, Israel is supporting ISIS and terrorists.

And, even if the fantasy of moderate rebels were reality, helping these people would mean distracting and using up Assad’s resources for the battle against them, thus weakening the only viable force fighting ISIS in the region.

As the Syrian government has been saying since 2011, Syria is engaged in a war not against its own people or “pro-democracy” forces, but against extremists and terrorists.

Last January’s Foreign Affairs interview with Assad quoted above has an interesting ending:

If you were able to deliver a message to President Obama today, what would it be?

“I think the normal thing that you ask any official in the world is to work for the interests of his people. And the question I would ask any American is, what do you get from supporting terrorists in our country, in our region? What did you get from supporting the Muslim Brotherhood a few years ago in Egypt and other countries? What did you get from supporting someone like Erdogan?”

These policies are not in the interests of the US but seemingly for Israel: supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, like invading Iraq, has served to destabilise the consolidated powers in the region. Assad continued:

“You [Americans] are the greatest power in the world now; you have too many things to disseminate around the world: knowledge, innovation, IT, with its positive repercussions. How can you be the best in these fields yet the worst in the political field? This is a contradiction. That is what I think the American people should analyze and question. Why do you fail in every war? You can create war, you can create problems, but you cannot solve any problem. Twenty years of the peace process in Palestine and Israel, and you cannot do anything with this, in spite of the fact that you are a great country.” [Emphasis added]

All this seems nonsensical and contradictory if you indeed start from the premise that US foreign and domestic policies are meant to benefit the US. But it immediately becomes rational if you see that American elites are at war with their own people and don’t act with their best interest at heart.

But in the context of Syria, what would a better policy look like?

One that preserves stability in the Middle East. Syria is the heart of the Middle East. Everybody knows that. If the Middle East is sick, the whole world will be unstable. In 1991, when we started the peace process, we had a lot of hope. Now, after more than 20 years, things are not at square one; they’re much below that square. So the policy should be to help peace in the region, to fight terrorism, to promote secularism, to support this area economically, to help upgrade the mind and society, like you did in your country. That is the supposed mission of the United States, not to launch wars. Launching war doesn’t make you a great power.”

Assad’s suggested strategy is reasonable but is the opposite of what America is pursuing, because stability in the Middle East, by making Israel’s enemies stronger, is not in the interest of the Jewish state.

Which, while publicly condemning them, doesn’t hesitate to side with and help the terrorist groups capable of committing the worst atrocities, including beheading children, using women as sex slaves, and setting men on fire.

Enza Ferreriis an Italian-born, London-based Philosophy graduate, writer and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L’Espresso, La Repubblica.

In choosing burning as the execution method of the Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, a devout Muslim, ISIS once again directly violated Islamic principles.

Just how ‘Islamic’ is the Islamic State?

The barbaric burning video of the Jordanian pilot was accompanied by a list of justifications to offset the inevitable “backlash” ISIS expected to receive from the Muslim world.

“Just ten minutes after the video was released, the jihadist group published a checklist of justifications, in a bid to encourage ISIS supporters to defend the barbaric actions,”reports the Daily Mail.

“The post, uploaded onto pro-ISIS jihadi forum Al-Platform, offered guidance to ISIS sympathisers over what they should say if questioned about the merits of the brutal murder.”

According to both the Quran and the Hadith, a compilation of commentaries by the Prophet Muhammad, it is strictly forbidden in Islam to burn a human being.

“It is Islamically forbidden to burn a human, whether dead or alive,”writes Dr. Wael Shihab, PhD in Islamic Studies, Al-Azhar University. “Allah Most High says, {Truly We have honored human beings} (Al-Isra’ 17: 70); burning a human being is a blatant disregard of the honor owed him or her as per the Divine will. In one of his hadiths, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “No one is entitled to punish with fire except the Creator (God) of the fire”. (Abu Dawud, Sunan, No. 2673)

Given the myriad of other grisly execution methods available to them, why would ISIS specifically choose a method that completely violates Islamic principles, risking a huge backlash from the Muslim world? Why would supposed ISIS supporters vote on Twitter for this method to be used?

Didier François, a French journalist who was held captive by ISIS for 10 months, told CNNthat none of the ISIS militants he came into contact with even had a copy of the Quran.

In addition, François said that his captors never mentioned religion when discussing their violent ideology, and only ever discussed politics.

ISIS also violated the Islamic faith when they beheaded American journalist James Foley despite the fact that he had converted to Islam.

The execution of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, another Muslim convert, also caused confusion even amongst ISIS supporters.

“Even for some Muslims who might be inclined to support ISIS’ broader goal — establishing a caliphate in the Middle East — killing a person who has converted to Islam is a bridge too far,”reported Vocativ.

Although ISIS openly plans to establish an Islamic caliphate across the entire region, its methods for doing so are beginning to drastically deviate from even an extremist interpretation of the Islamic faith.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces man a checkpoint on the road leading from Kirkuk to the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, June 20, 2014. Click to enlarge

It’s not entirely news that the under-equipped Kurdish forces holding the front lines against ISIS in Iraq have accepted help from Iran. There have been reports of arms shipments from Iran to Iraqi Kurdistan since last summer, as promised military support from the West proved slow in arriving.

In fact, Kurdish President Massoud Barzani credited Iran with being the “first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition.” Some Iranian officials also claim their military has provided training to Kurdish peshmerga forces, although those claims have been disputed by both the Kurds and other sources within Iran.

The Kurds are once again talking about receiving shipments of Iranian arms, while lamenting the slow delivery of Western supplies. President Barzani’s son Masrour, chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, told Eli Like atBloomberg Viewthat “the shortage of ammunition is a big problem,” and the paltry four shipments delivered in recent months are “not even close to what we were asking for.”

Masrour Barzani said the weapons shortage posed difficulties for the Kurds as they finally managed to push ISIS out of the battered city of Kobani. Kurds did the ground work while aircraft from the U.S. coalition provided support, but now they find themselves under-equipped for following up on their success in Kobani.

Barzani was particularly bitter about the far greater amount of assistance the U.S. provided to the Iraqi army, which failed to put up much of a fight when ISIS rolled across the border from Syria: “The United States spent 10 years training an Iraqi army, it spent billions of dollars training an Iraqi army and equipping it with Humvees, MRAPs [mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles], artillery and howitzers, all of this given to the Iraqi army, and it was dismantled in 10 hours,” he told Lake. “Now the Americans are providing 250 MRAPs to Iraq, but only 25 of them are promised to be given to the Kurds. “90 percent of the burden for this war is on the shoulder of the Peshmerga, 90 percent of the work is done by the Peshmerga, but we are only getting 10 percent of the armaments.”

Barzani further complained about all of Humvees and Abrams tanks provided by the U.S. going to Iraq, leaving them to make do with old Soviet armor captured from Saddam Hussein’s forces, and expressed deep skepticism that the slow delivery of fresh American supplies to Kurdish forces was due to any kind of “technical issue.” Part of the problem is an American law that forbids the direct shipment of arms to “sub-state entities,” which means everything has to go through Baghdad. The Iraqi government would not look favorably upon a big Kurdish military build-up, and it would be contrary to current U.S. policy about keeping the Kurds in Iraq. Barzani pointedly noted that the weapons he’s gotten from less constrained Western allies, such as Germany, have proven quite useful for taking out the American vehicles ISIS swiped from fleeing Iraqi forces.

Presumably the rockets and other “specialized weapons” the Kurds have received from Iran have proven useful as well. Iranian arms in Kurdish hands are not a welcome sight for Baghdad, and it ought to disturb the Obama Administration more than it evidently does. Iran doesn’t want to see Kurdistan go independent, not least because Iran, like Iraq and Turkey, has a significant and restless Kurdish population.

If Greater Kurdistan happens, it’s likely to gobble up a bit of Turkey and Iran, causing headaches for their governments. When President Barzani floated an independence referendum last summer, the Iranianscalled him“an emotional individual with secessionist slogans.” The last time Iranian Kurds got serious about secession, right after World War II, Barzani’s father was involved.

But Iran loves the sight of Kurds trouncing the Islamic State, and a Kurdish minority in Iraq that feels gratitude toward Tehran while simmering with resentment for Baghdad would suit the Iranians just fine. Writing at the New York Post,Ralph Peters cited Iranian outreach to the Kurds as progress toward putting the old Persian Empire back together, along with the overthrow of Yemen’s government by Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels, Hezbollah working Iran’s will in Lebanon, sympathetic Shia forces making trouble in Bahrain… and of course Tehran’s client Bashar Assad looking solid in Syria, with the help of that other aspiring empire-rebooter, Vladimir Putin.

President Obama seems to think this new Shiite empire will be easier to deal with than the psychotic death cults of Sunni ISIS and al-Qaeda. If the Kurds fall into Iran’s orbit, we’ll be one step closer to finding out. U.S. officials seem determined to win an argument with the Kurds over whether they are being deliberately under-supplied in the fight against ISIS. It sounds like the Kurds are growing weary of the discussion.

Walking to his death: The professionally shot and edited footage shows Moaz al-Kasasbeh walking towards the cage in which he would be burnt alive. As if the filmmakers knew precisely how to build the audiences emotions. Click to enlarge

So they burned him in hellfire. That was what Islamic State (Isis) wanted to show the world. This was Genghis Khan-style cruelty. First, Isis forced the Jordanians and the Japanese to acknowledging its power – by offering a Japanese journalist as bait for negotiations – and then showed the Jordanian king and the Japanese prime minister what it thought of them. The Jordanians had demanded proof that Flt Lt Muath al-Kasaesbeh was alive, and they were given their evidence – as he was led into his cage of fire. The Syrian military could have warned King Abdullah of Jordan what to expect: months ago, Isis put captive Syrian soldiers to the torch – and then barbecued their heads on video. And no-one said a word.

For King Abdullah, who had offered the failed al-Qaeda suicide-bomber Sajida al-Rishawi as payment for al-Kasaesbeh’s life, there may, most dreadfully, be advantage in the burning alive of his young pilot. Those tens of thousands of Jordanian Sunni Muslims who had demanded he free al-Kasaesbeh now know what their fellow Muslims in Syria and Iraq had in mind for him. But who among the Arabs will not now also question the cost of supporting the American war against Isis?

In the West — where we have almost run out of clichés of loathing – we will describe this Isis version of burning-at-the-stake as barbarous, heinous, inhuman, apocalyptic, animal, etc. But Muslims may reflect that among the first verses of the Koran is a warning to them, of the “grievous chastisement” to be visited upon those who only pretend to believe, the ‘monafaqin’, those who lie to themselves, who are not ‘true believers’. There are the true believers, of course. There are the non-believers. But then there are the ‘pretenders’, who will suffer – and here I use Tarif Khalidi’s latest translation of Islam’s holiest book – “painful punishment”.

Of which – and the clergy of the European Middle Ages would agree – the fires of hell are most painful of all. But many Muslims may see, in Isis’s’ frightful action, one awful misdirection of God’s message. For it is God who must visit the ‘pretenders’ with punishment. God is the judge on the day of judgement. Not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or the Isis media men who filmed the cage and the poor man writhing in torment within under the torrent of petroleum. It is, of course, for the Muslim world to decide on this strange interpretation, but there will be ruthless leaders aplenty – Bashar al-Assad of Syria comes to mind, now that we have decided that his enemies are even more horrible than him – who will benefit from the cruelty of the last few hours.

Long before Isis butchered the Iraqi army and Iraq’s Shias, and put the Christian and Yazidi peoples to flight, it was chopping up the corpses of the Syrian government’s supporters and sending videotapes of their decapitation to their families before releasing them to a public which largely preferred to look aside. It is not Isis which has changed. It is us. Our intolerance of the autocrats of the Middle East – of the al-Sissis and al-Assads, of the Hashemite monarchy, of the quivering princes of the Gulf, even of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei – is already mutating in the face of the Caliphate. All must surely become our ‘moderates’ again, those who wish to ‘unite against terror’ now that we gaze upon the fires of hell in Raqaa and Mosul.

For Isis, their Muslim enemies must, by definition, be traitors to their faith. And so we may re-read the Khalidi translation with special care. “And if someone says to them: ‘Do not sow discord in the earth,’ they answer: We are merely trying to bring people together”.

Which is what the ‘moderates’ say, of course. And poor Flt Lt al-Kasaesbeh, in his agony.